Đoàn Viết Hoạt

Đoàn Viết Hoạt (1 February 1940 – 14 May 2025) was a Vietnamese journalist, educator and democratic activist who was repeatedly imprisoned for his criticisms of Vietnam's Communist leadership. He received numerous international awards in recognition of his work, including the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, and is often referred to as the "Sakharov of Vietnam".

Background and first arrest Hoạt was born on 1 February 1940 in , roughly ten miles from Hanoi. He left Hà Nội in 1954 to pursue his education. Returning to Vietnam that same year, he became a professor and later vice president of Vạn Hạnh Buddhist University, the only private Buddhist university in Saigon. Hoạt was detained the following year in a mass round-up of intellectuals with United States ties, Hoạt was sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment; his colleagues were given sentences ranging from eight months to 16 years.

Second imprisonment and international response Hoạt's sentence was protested by a number of human rights organizations, including the United Nations, whose Working Group on Arbitrary Detention ruled that Hoạt's sentence was arbitrary detention and therefore a violation of both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Vietnam was a state party. and the World Association of Newspapers. Finally Hoạt was placed in solitary confinement in the comparatively remote Thanh Cam prison in the country's north; in 1997, Amnesty International reported him to be under severe psychological stress as a result of his isolation. He also suffered from high blood pressure, kidney stones, and worsening eyesight throughout his jail term, worsened by a lack of medical attention and the conditions of his imprisonment. The United States agreed to grant him citizenship, and seven days later, he rejoined his family at the Los Angeles International Airport, where he was greeted by a crowd of more than one hundred well-wishers.

Awards Hoạt received numerous international awards for his activism, both during and following his imprisonment. In 1993, he won the International Press Freedom Award of the Committee to Protect Journalists, "an annual recognition of courageous journalism". The following year, the PEN American Center gave Hoạt the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award, which honors "writers who have fought courageously in the face of adversity for the right to freedom of expression". In 1995, Hoạt was awarded the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, which he shared with Indian children's rights activist Kailash Satyarthi. drawing criticism from the Vietnamese government, which called it "a mistake which would not be supported by public opinion in Vietnam.". In 2000, the International Press Institute named him one of its 50 World Press Freedom Heroes of the 20th century. and continued to speak and write in favor of democratic reform in Vietnam.